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This article was taken from the January 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.

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It may appear to be a giant sheet floating in the breeze, but the latest addition to the Louvre's Cour Visconti in Paris is grounded by some pretty formidable engineering.

Reopened last September after four years in construction, the new Department of Islamic Art is supported by a network of steel tubes, on which sits a glass and aluminium mesh-clad canopy. Eight circular concrete columns, 30cm in diameter and tilted at different angles, bear the entire 120-tonne load.

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The geometry and intricate pattern of the gallery's undulating roof required extensive 3D computer modelling to determine the respective positions and angles of inclination for each of the structure's triangles (there are 2,350 in all). "Without [3D modelling] we wouldn't be able to realise the idea," explains Italian architect Mario Bellini, who, along with Frenchman Rudy Ricciotti, designed the gallery.

A double lattice system of steel tubes, varying in thickness between 4mm and 12mm, was added

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Bellini and Ricciotti submerged the gallery space 12 metres underground, offering extra protection to its more light-sensitive exhibits, many of which are rarely displayed. The resulting interior gallery is darkly subterranean as a result -- deliberately so, according to Bellini, who adds that the interior provides "a double contrast between darkness and lightness -- under the earth and above within the sky".